Can't Find Media on SD Card? Blame ROM Manager!

[EEngineer]

For most of yesterday I'd been trying to figure out why my CM7 G2X won't see any sound, video, or image file on my phone's SD Card. Both the stock Gallery app, and MX Player File Browser, just didn't see any of the media in the folders on my SD Card. And the Music player saw absolutely no songs on my SD Card. And my ringtone and IM tones were messed up.

So, while playing with different settings, on MX Player, I unchecked "Respect .nomedia (Exclude a folder if ".nomedia" file exists in that folder or a parent folder". Voila! I can see videos! I can see my images and songs!

Well, I looked in the root of my SD Card and there it was - a file called ".nomedia". Strangely, the icon for that file is the same icon as ROM Manager icon. Odd. because I had just updated ROM Manager. I deleted it and saw my media files again.

Well, today I saw a new update for ROM Manager Premium. The update states "5.0.1.4 Fix bug that places .nomedia file in the wrong directory if directories are missing." Huh. I guess the "wrong directory" is a cagy way of saying it puts it in the root of your SD Card so you can't see any of your media. And I do have the proper directories that ROM Manager needs.

O.K., I updated ROM Manager. Guess what? No media files again! And that damned file ".nomedia" is right back in the root of my SD Card, same as before, with the same ROM Manager icon staring back at me.

Look, it's not enough that people like me wasted money on ROM Manager Premium because the license check always crashes. Now, the app is messing up our phones?

Hope this helps

 

[tonyp]

Stupid RomManager.

Easiest way:
Connect your phone via usb (with usb debugging enabled), open a cmd window and type:

adb shell
rm /sdcard/.nomedia
adb reboot

You can do this without a PC from Terminal Emulator at Android as well, just open it and type the following.
After a reboot everything is back to normal.

rm /sdcard/.nomedia

The problem in the FileManager is, that you have to enable "show hidden files" (or sth. like that), a leading dot (".") at a filename indicates a hidden file at Linux.
But of course you can just enable that option and delete the ".nomedia" file manually as well.


-

 

[WoodroweBones]

I use RootExplorer which can show hidden files... removed the .nomedia file and while some stuff showed up (gallery pics) most stuff still doesnt (all my custom notifications/ringtones and my music wont show in Ubermusic, Play Music or Winamp. I downloaded Rescan Media and ran it but still nothing.

Any suggestions?

 

[BigDig]

I use RootExplorer which can show hidden files... removed the .nomedia file and while some stuff showed up (gallery pics) most stuff still doesnt (all my custom notifications/ringtones and my music wont show in Ubermusic, Play Music or Winamp. I downloaded Rescan Media and ran it but still nothing.

Any suggestions?

Update your rom manager, then delete the nomedia file, then reboot! You should be alright after that!

Sent from my LG-P999 using xda app-developers app

 

[WoodroweBones]

Update your rom manager, then delete the nomedia file, then reboot! You should be alright after that!

Sent from my LG-P999 using xda app-developers app

Fist thing I tried unfortunately

 

[EEngineer]

I use RootExplorer which can show hidden files... removed the .nomedia file and while some stuff showed up (gallery pics) most stuff still doesnt (all my custom notifications/ringtones and my music wont show in Ubermusic, Play Music or Winamp. I downloaded Rescan Media and ran it but still nothing.

Any suggestions?

Look into your other folders on your card for ".nomedia". ROM Mangler could have placed that file in different places.

You might also want to remove the SD Card and put it in your PC, and search the entire card for ".nomedia". Make sure you only delete ".nomedia" in the folders that you want to show media.

 

[WoodroweBones]

Here is what I did...

I renamed my Music folder to "Music2" then rebooted my phone. Now after that I went into Ubermusic and started an SD Card scan but didnt wait very long (maybe 10 seconds) then went into Winamp and clicked on "Songs" and I could see it was searching. Eventually all my songs showed up so not sure if it was Winamp or Ubermusic

---------- Post added at 10:21 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:16 PM ----------

Look into your other folders on your card for ".nomedia". ROM Mangler could have placed that file in different places.

You might also want to remove the SD Card and put it in your PC, and search the entire card for ".nomedia". Make sure you only delete ".nomedia" in the folders that you want to show media.

The Galaxy Nexus doesnt have a removeable SD card but the method I used in the post above worked

 

[braschlosan]

I'm cross posting here because this seems to be an active thread

In some instances Media Scanner will DELETE ALL THE PICTURES ON THE SD CARD
Here is an example google bug report on the issue http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=3692

When a ".nomedia" file is added to a directory that has already been scanned by the media scanner, any jpg and gif files in that directory and all sub directories will be deleted.

I have lost a year of pictures because of this. Before you assume I am making a mistake realize that the SDcard is now connected directly to my laptop and a search of the entire drive (including subfolders) with the string *.jpg gives no results. I can post a screenshot if you like.

Rom Manager caused my pictures actually be deleted and I am using recovery tools that scan the free space to get them back

If any of you suffered as I did try this OPEN SOURCE recovery tool specifically made for recovering pictures from an SDcard - PhotoRec - CGSecurity

Here is a screenshot of my current progress

edit: I just realized it also broke some of my applications that stored images on the sdcard that served as part of their menu system. SCREW YOU ROM MANAGER DEVS. I will never trust anything you publish from this day forward

 

[EEngineer]

I'm cross posting here because this seems to be an active thread

In some instances Media Scanner will DELETE ALL THE PICTURES ON THE SD CARD
Here is an example google bug report on the issue http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=3692

I have lost a year of pictures because of this.

Sorry to hear that. I'm running CM7 Nightly #225 and it seems CM7 fixed that bug - I tried to recreate that on my phone and it did not delete the files.

 

[AndroidKills]

Quite strange; I was wondering why lately my phone has been weird and not reading any of my files from the SDcard. i cant find my music nor photos ive taken, but when i use rootexplorer i can find them.

Edit - thanks alot!! by deleting the .nomedia file, its all working!

 

[Sonic Marvel]

How i fixed it

i used rom toolbox pro and went into the sd root.
Android > .data > .nomedia
and i deleted .nomedia and poof it worked

 

[Might-E]

Thanks, had to play around with folder names and reboot, but it's working again now. I believe I have to post at least 10 times before I can thank a post though

EDIT
Ah, just had to post once and the thanks button shows up now!

 

[EEngineer]

Thanks, had to play around with folder names and reboot, but it's working again now. I believe I have to post at least 10 times before I can thank a post though

EDIT
Ah, just had to post once and the thanks button shows up now!

Back at 'cha - I gave you your first Thanks! Nice to know that only two people appreciate the work I did.

 

[atb1183]

damn ROM Manager

well, this teach me to never hit the "update all" button in google play now. ONLY update apps that shows changes you need/want.

anyway, after 2 days of messing deleting .nomedia, only to have it come back at next boot and uninstalling apps that was suspect. i finally saw a thread about this.

The thread recommended: remove update/uninstall rom manager
delete .nomedia
clear data of Media Storage
reboot

this worked out perfectly for me and that damn .nomedia file hasnt come back for the past few reboots

 

[EEngineer]

Do not allow any apps to auto-update. And I have background data turned off all the time to save the battery.

The only time I have background data turned on is when I'm in Google Play. I always check permissions, (you MUST click "see all").

Here are the apps I have stopped updating because they suddenly want scary permissions:

Angry Birds - wants access to Google Billing Service (****!)
Camera 360 - wants ability to change WiFi state, modify passwords
Firefox - Modify global system settings, access user accounts, read sync settings
Google Translate - take photos and videos without user intervention, view available networks
YouTube - take photos and videos without user intervention, access user accounts

 

[reapur]

I'm hoping someone can help, I'm having this problem only with JB ROMs

ROM manager is not even on my phone, here's what I do in recovery
Wipe data/Factory Reset
Wipe cache partition
run dalvik-wiper.zip
reboot recovery
format /system /cache/ /data /boot AND /sdcard
reboot recovery
?? at this point this phone should have nothing on it right?
install ROM. (I have tried 5 or 6 of the JB ROMs in the Nexus S TMO develop section)
Copy over my pics and music. I install no Apps, just run gallery and it's empty, even after 2 hours.
Where does ROM manager do its damage after everything is formatted? Is it CWM that is causing the problem?
I've checked /DCIM and /Music on my sdcard backup and they don't have any .nomedia or hidden files.
where do I go next?
Thanks for the reply.

 

[mikrron]

Same thing here. i have only CWM and root.
tried all kinds of stuff like format sd card new rom search and delete .nomedia
installed new rom manager now...
+quick system info shows cpu 100% and batery dies quickly (25% at night to 0 in the morning)
With sd card removed battery goes back to normal..
Today i used another phone,the old one, because of this..
It really sucks and im close to sell or smash it!

---------- Post added at 11:24 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:01 PM ----------

Same thing here. i have only CWM and root.
tried all kinds of stuff like format sd card new rom search and delete .nomedia
installed new rom manager now...
+quick system info shows cpu 100% and batery dies quickly (25% at night to 0 in the morning)
With sd card removed battery goes back to normal..
Today i used another phone,the old one, because of this..
It really sucks and im close to sell or smash it!

don`t know how i did it, noe it`s working , you have to f#@&k it up a little with the sd card, Install/uninstal rom manager and nomedia files (note the nomedia wasnt placed in my gallery or music folders) , hope i don`t meet this in the future..

 

[EEngineer]

@mikrron, it's possible you have a bad misbehaving application. You might have a game that scans your sdcard and sends photos and other info to the game's servers. That would account for your bad battery usage.

Install the firewall DroidWall and block internet access to any application that doesn't NEED the internet to run, like cameras, most games, etc. See how much your battery life improves.

 

[dimitris.]

Sorry for performing necromancy on this thread but I encountered a problem. It is similar to the one described here (files can be browsed normally but no media-apps can see them. Even the settings>storage menu shows nothing on my sd card but reports that the free space is only 1.5gb out of 8gbs total.

If I fire up a file browser I can access all the files on the sd-card without a problem. I can even view the pictures with the gallery and the music app plays my music files alright, if I select the file from the browser and then use the corresponding program to deal with it.

If I just use the gallery or the music app or songbird or any other media player, they all report an empty media library. Media on the phone's internal memory can be scanned by these apps and included to their library without a problem.

After lots of searching around on the web, I found that most people that had this problem, managed to solve it by deleting some stray .nomedia files that were in their sd-cards (like you guys did in this thread).

So, I searched my sd card for those files (I know they are hidden), both through the phone's file-browser and by connecting it to my computer, and I failed to find anything. For good measure I backed all my data up, formatted the card, restored the data, cleared the media storage data and restarted my phone, all to no avail. I know that the sd-rescan apps are irrelevant here but I tried one of them anyways. It didn't help...

I should note that I have not tampered with the phone in any way (no custom roms, no rom manager, not rooted, no unlocked bootloader or anything else of that kind). Also my phone is a Sony Xperia Tipo, using android 4. Sorry if the post is out of place here... The thread seemed very relevant.

If someone has any idea about what the problem might be, I'd love to hear from them. Thank you in advance.

 

[monte666]

Is it possible that the nomedia file is in the secured android file that you cant access without su permission

All the way from mars